


Longing

by elistaire



Series: Highlander50 Prompt Response [4]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elistaire/pseuds/elistaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tessa is homesick, so she is baking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Longing

**Author's Note:**

> For the Highlander50 Prompt challenge. Prompt: Longing

She longed for her mother's kitchen -- more specifically for the scent of her mother's kitchen, her mother's domain. She remembered it perfectly, the smell of it having imprinted on her mind, her skin, in her hair and clothes, indelibly.

Her mother was not a cook. She cooked to feed the family, to keep them well fed, and alive, as a matter of sustenance. She baked as a reason for living. Not bread or madeleines, those could be found at the shops, classic and perfect, prideful, though she made her own variations on those themes on occasion. No, her favorites were unfamiliar cookies and biscuits, pies and cakes, desserts with foreign titles that had no local corresponding name, discovered during trips to far-away lands and recipes brought back or attempted until verisimilitude was reached.

So, the kitchen smelled both like every kitchen of her friends -- flour and eggs and yeast and sugar, almond and lemon and vanilla, and every common baking smell there was. But it also smelled uncommon. Cardamom, spicy ginger, star anise, bitter chocolates, mango, green powders with no name to them, imported grains the color of saturated dreams.

Tessa pulled the pan from the oven and clucked at herself. Almost right. The kitchen filled with baking smells, whisks and measuring cups cluttered the countertops, but it always smelled of Tessa's kitchen. Too much orange, heavy cream too white and pasteurized, the biscuits always a shade too dark, too light, a touch crumblier or more tender. Delicious, fattening, indulgent. But distinctly Tessa.

"Burnt?" asked Duncan from the entry way.

"No," she replied, looking them over. "They're perfect." Except perfect wasn't what she wanted. Like the magic of San Franciso yeast, sourdough made anywhere else wasn't the same, and even if she was her mother's daughter, her efforts were not similar enough.

"Here." Duncan pulled out a slim envelope and handed it over. Two plane tickets to France were tucked inside.

Tessa hugged him. "How did you know?"

"You always bake when you're homesick," he said simply.

Tessa kissed his cheek, thinking briefly that he was right. She was homesick--and her mother's kitchen was still there, her mother very possibly baking right this very moment, so many miles upon miles away. It only required some travel.

Tessa could smell Duncan's aftershave, strong and different against the sweetness of the kitchen smells. It gave her a moment's pause. Her mother was only across the globe, her kitchen and its comforting smells always open to Tessa. Duncan had only his memories for such things -- his mother's cooking was long, long past. Tessa gave him a squeeze around his shoulders, trying to unravel the sweet and sad emotions that twined around her heart, and vowed to feed him extra when they were finally back in her own mother's kitchen. It would be a surrogate for him, but there would always be plenty of pastries to go around, and love and welcome-ness, which was the most essential part of a kitchen. His mother's, her mother's, or her own.

"Thank you," she told him. "Thank you."


End file.
